Turning A Blind Eye

If you have an hour to spare while exercising or traveling, make a point to listen to Mike Daisey’s fascinating and moving monologue on this week’s This American Life, describing his amateur investigations into the brutal working conditions in Shenzhen, China’s tech factories. While the focus is on Apple, the same plants make products for most major technology firms: Dell, HP, Samsung, Nokia and so on. It will give you pause about the real price of the tools and toys that we’ve come to rely on and obsess over.